I got the following email today from the British organization H:MC21, an organization dedicated to keeping homeopathic medicine available throughout the world in the 21st century:

“A number of Medicines Acts are being consoidated and simplified. However, if the proposals go into force as they stand:

“You would no longer able to get homeopathic medicines by phone or online
To get any unlicensed homeopathic medicine a face-to-face consultation would be required at a registered pharmacy. Unlicensed medicines number in the thousands and make up the majority of homeopathic prescriptions, while there are only 50 licenced homeopathic medicines. This will also mean you cannot legally buy unlicensed homeopathic medicines online or over the phone as you currently do.

“Homeopaths would not be able to dispense or prescribe medicines.
“Homeopathic practitioners would not be able to dispense unlicensed homeopathic medicines to their patients. This arises because homeopaths are not recognised by this law as being supplementary prescribers and it will be illegal for homeopathic pharmacies to supply them with the essential (unlicensed) medicines required for their patients.

“Patients would have to get homeopathic medicines personally at a handful of licenced homeopathic pharmacies in Britain
Hundreds of thousands of people who currently have prescriptions filled for unlicensed homeopathic medicines will be unable to obtain their urgent medicines. The estimated 6 million users of homeopathy in Britain cannot be expected to be supplied medicines face-to-face by less than five licenced premises.

“It is critical that you include your name and address (with postcode) and that you personalise your letter with your own views and experiences.

“Notes about letters to MPs

“Keep the letter short (a page or less), and emphasise any points which are relevant to the particular MP.

“It is not necessary or recommended to include all the text suggested here.

“I’m deeply concerned a draft proposal set out by the MHRA as part of its consolidation and review of the Medicines Act 1968 could have a significant impact on my ability as a patient to access homeopathic medicines in the UK.
In its current form section 10 of the proposal would only allow unlicensed homeopathic medicines to be bought directly from a pharmacist face-to-face, in effect outlawing the purchase of these medicines over the telephone or via online ordering. This would mean I would be deprived of the medicines that I have found to be so beneficial to my health.
There are only five homeopathic pharmacies in the UK, so most homeopathic medicines are ordered from these specialist pharmacies either by phone or via the Internet. Therefore the enforcement of section 10 in its current form will have serious consequences for the six million people in the UK who choose to use this form of complementary medicine.
If not revised the proposal would also have serious consequences for more than 2,000 homeopathic practitioners, many of whom would find it impossible to treat patients like myself because they can no longer obtain the appropriate homeopathic medicine.
I understand that a central plank of government health policy is to increase patient choice. Section 10 will eliminate choice for people like me who want to be treated with homeopathy.
I would like to call on your support in getting the Health Minister to revise slightly the proposed language of the revised Medicines Act to ensure that I have continued access to a full range of homeopathic medicines and my right to choose homeopathic treatment is maintained”
“Other activity:
“H:MC21 is working on getting other activity off the ground, and more news will be sent out soon.

Now, what completely galls me is that those who oppose homeopathy seem to be dead set on taking away the freedom of choice that those of us who find value in homeopathy wish to make. What right have they? It violates every basic freedom and right–what indeed could be more basic than an individual’s right to choose what form of medical treatment he chooses for his OWN BODY?–that each individual lucky enough to live in a democratic society enjoys.

Wake up Britain! Pay attention. This potential destruction of a basic right to choose is far more important than you can possibly know. If homeopathy is taken away today in response to the very loud (and very wrong) voices of the few, what right will be taken next? If you can’t enjoy the freedom to choose the medicine that you wish, just how free are you to make ANY decision?

Don’t just sit there and let this freedom be taken away. Speak up. Make a noise. Get mad. And get very very loud when you get mad. Post this article on your own blog. Tweet about it. Let the world know that you care, whether you are British or not. This is not a British issue. This is a basic human right that is being seized. We should all have something to say about it!

On first consideration, you may not think that this is very important. After all, it likely doesn’t involve you directly. However, as a warning sign, this is something that should alarm every American and drive them to action. So read on:

Colchicine is a drug that has been in use literally for thousands of years. It is made from the flower the Meadow Saffron, also called the Autumn Crocus (Colchicum Autumnale). As the allopathic drug (the planet is also made into a homeopathic remedy called Colchicum, which, happily in not affected by the events discussed here) is still taken more or less directly from the plant and not from a chemical equivalent, it might almost be considered an herbal remedy that has, for generations, been used by allopaths in the treatment of gout.

In fact, as a treatment for gout, Colchicine has likely been around for as long as gout has. First recorded treatments for patients with gout date back to 1500 B.C., when physicians in Egypt began using the medicine for patients with rheumatism. It began being used specifically for gout in Rome in 500 A.D. After hundreds of years of being used in Europe, none other than Benjamin Franklin brought Autumn Crocus plants to America so that he could grow the herbal medicine for the treatment of his own case of gout. And it was “purified” into an allopathic drug for the first time in 1833. It has been used in exactly the same way ever since.

Colchicine works by leeching uric acid from the human system; and as uric acid build-up is the cause of gout, the medicine is effective not only for gout attacks, but can be used daily as a preventative, in that the medicine will keep the amount of uric acid in the system low enough to keep attacks from occurring. Note that Colchicine is also an anti-inflammatory, although it is not effective against other forms of arthritis or realted conditions.

For years, Colchicine was the go-to medicine for those with gout. It was easy to get a prescription for, it was cheap and it was effective—on average, a thirty-day supply cost as little as five or six dollars. And the drug was effective enough that, for many patients with gout, it was the only drug needed to keep their disease under control. So, what’s the issue with Colchicine? With everything going so well, a safe, effective, readily available and cheap medicine for one of the most painful conditions known to mankind, what could have possibly gone wrong?

Why the FDA, of course.

It is important to note that Colchicine was such an old drug that it actually pre-dated the FDA itself. There are a number of other drugs that are in the same position of having been grandfathered in when the FDA was formed, drugs that had been in use for decades and were an established part of the allopathic pharmacy, in regular use all over the United States on a daily basis. But of certain, specific reasons, Colchicine suddenly was targeted by the FDA.

Although no deaths or other catastrophic reactions to the medicine were uncovered (indeed, Colchicine is one of the few allopathic drugs that a person like me—someone who is almost rabidly dedicated to homeopathy to the point of avoiding almost all aspects of allopathic medicine at all times—could feel good about. It was as close to natural as possible and still be a part of the allopathic pharmacy.

And it was fairly safe to use. The only negative side-effect associated with the drug that I know of is that it will cause diarrhea if over used. And, indeed, many patients using Colchicine chose to take it until it caused diarrhea, knowing that, in doing so, the uric acid would be flushed away more quickly, if not more comfortably.

But a few years back, the FDA very quietly decided that Colchicine was not safe. That it had never been tested effectively enough. And so they very quietly once more (and the FDA can become remarkably stealthy when they want to) removed the drug from the market, saying that they had reason to suspect that it was not safe. Which was, let’s face it, much like the Bush administration insisting against all evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction as an excuse for declaring war.

Here’s the thing about Colchicine. The FDA turned the drug over to URL Pharma, with whom they had entered into a new agreement for the medication. URL Pharma agreed to invest $100 million in the drug, $45 million of which went to the FDA itself as an “application fee.” After Colchicine (I really shouldn’t call it that at this point, because the drug formerly know as Colchicine had been taken from the market and legally no longer existed) passed the various tests and was officially declared safe, was it simply put back on the market under the same name for $6 for a thirty day supply?

Of course not.

Colchicine was renamed Colcrys and returned to the market. And who has been given an exclusive license for the drug? URL Pharma. And what is the cost of a thirty-day supply of Colcrys? Ninety dollars.

That’s right: in “proving” that a drug that has been used for thirty-five hundred years is safe and effective, a pharmaceutical company has been given the right to increase the cost of the exact same drug from five dollars to ninety dollars for a one month supply. But why? Why is Colchicine worth re-licensing?

It’s all about gout.

You see, in our nation, somewhere around fifty million people have high blood pressure. And many, many of those patients are given diuretics in treatment for hypertension, with the idea that, if the amount of fluid in the blood flowing through blood vessels is reduced, then the pressure of the blood beating against those vessels will be reduced from an unsafe higher level to a safer low level. All well and good.

But what the doctors prescribing diuretics don’t tell their patients is that one common issue with using them is that they can cause gout. As the amount of fluid in the body is reduced, then the amount of uric acid is increased. And because uric acid weighs more than water, the acid flows down to the feet, where the acid crystals (the excess of the acid) are stored by the body in the joints of the feet, most often the joints of the big toe, with the result of a gout attack.

Because of the misuse of diuretics, millions of Americans now have gout, a disease that, once established in incurable. The condition can be managed (with the use of Colchicine—excuse me, Colcrys), but not cured.

And so, over the past twenty years, literally millions of hypertension patients have become gout sufferers as well. And those patients needed a medicine for that condition for the rest of their lives. But what did allopathic medicine have to offer? The best remedy was this old, old medicine, one that was nearly worthless in terms of profits. But not, it turns out, if it were taken off the market and remarketed as a new drug under a new name. Then you can increase the cost of the medication nearly twenty times and, as a result, profits are huge.

Can anyone tell me how, in any way, shape or form, the FDA was looking after the interests of the American pubic in the way it dealt with the drug Colchicine? Instead of investigating the use of diuretics in the treatment of hypertension, something that leads directly to the creation of gout symptoms in many patients, the FDA instead takes a medicine that has been used safely and effectively for thousands of years and declares it safe so that it can pocket a huge fee and then allow a pharmaceutical company to extort the members of the public who need that medicine.

This result is that those patients without insurance can no longer afford their medicine, and that insurance companies are forced to pay a much higher amount for those who do have the medicine (this results, of course, in higher medical costs for all). When will the FDA actually make a decision, take an action that is in the best interests of the American public, a community that they are sworn to protect?

The thing about Colchicine is that it proves that they are not doing it yet. And there are other drugs—and plenty of them, that were grandfathered in, that the FDA could use to perform the same magic act of taking a drug with little profit and turn in into a new profit center. So the question is: where will the FDA strike next. And that’s not a very nice question to have to ask about an agency of our own federal government. I’d like to think that my government is working for me, and not against me, as it did with Colchicine.

It’s in the news virtually every day now. Allopathic medicines, which, by their very nature are poison toxic now have become even more dangerous. Why? Because the giant pharmaceutical companies are not content with the huge profits they are making. Now they seek to make a higher profit by releasing sub-standard drugs to unsuspecting patients on a global level.
When is enough enough? We are already seeing consumers turning to homeopathic medicines by the millions, in spite of the ongoing shitfest against them that is being waged by the British and Australian groups known jointly as the “Skeptics” (a group so ill-read that they can’t even get their own name right–there has never been a group so staunchly behind allopathic medicine and against everything else, no matter how valuable it may be, the term “Skeptic” implies a searching and open, if critical mind–these folks are have done no research, make no attempt a real discovery, and will do nothing to risk their staunchly held values. Might one suggest renaming them “Luddites?” It seems a better fit.)

Well, today’s news is that Glaxo, that outstanding example of global greed and allopathic incompetence, is now having to make its settlements with the individual states for the toxic and/or ineffective drugs (Toxic and ineffective? Something of an allopathic home run!) that were sold earlier this decade. For a full report, click here.

What amazes me once again on reading this is the LACK of outrage. Why do those who use allopathic drugs never seem to raise a fuss when it turns out that their medications that cost them an arm and a leg may well also cause that arm or leg to fall off, among other “Side Effects” and that those who are literally shoving allopathic shit medications down the throats of sick people never seem to take a stand to make their medicines safer or more effective–only ever more expensive. And, again, where are the Skeptics on THIS issue. If they so want to prove that allopathic medicine is better, bigger, stronger and that it can beat up homeopathic medicine any day of the week, why don’t feel the same passion for cleaning their own house as they do in attempting to ransack ours? Where is their snark? Why aren’t they protesting Glaxo? Why are they , as ardent fans of the allopathic way, making sure that allopathic medicines are as safe as they can be and that their production is completely and totally above the sort of breakdown as Glaxo experienced?

Is it that it happens just too often? Or is it that so many people die of allopathic treatments in any given year that we have all simply numbed to that issue. Or have we, as I suspect, bought the bill of goods, the complete bullshit party line that tells us that killing patients, or making them choose between ailments (as we found out this week, with heart drugs significantly increasing the potential for diabetes), or taking pills with only the hope and no solid proof that they will work and not kill us (sort of a Russian Roulette of medical treatment) is good enough medicine for the average person.

I am glad that the states are getting some sort of settlement. But about the patients who took their diabetes medicine believing that it was safe and effective, only to find out the hard way that it was not? What about those taking Glaxo’s drugs for depression, who found out that Glaxo was about to give them something to really feel depressed about? What can ever truly compensate them? And how can EVER take any allopathic drug again without experiencing a certain dread, and harboring a certain fear that this might be the drug that kills them…

I haven’t ranted about this sort of crap for a while, but a new article in the New York TImes concerning newly found risks in taking statin drugs to lower cholesterol levels has me back in the same frenzy that I entered every other time the Times has told us all about the risks that allopathic crap drugs carry.

What makes me particularly crazy is the fact that doctors see a 9% increase in the chance of developing diabetes as a “side effect.” And that they find this increase to be completely acceptable. From the story:

“’I don’t think it’s very clinically important,’’’ said Dr. Steven E. Nissen, chairman of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic, who consults with drug companies that make statins but requires his fees be donated to charity. ‘What I worry about here is that people will read this story and say, ‘I don’t want to get diabetes so I’m going to stop my statin,’ and then they have a heart attack.’’’
True, nobody wants anyone to have a heart attack. But shouldn’t we all share a desire that the medicine we take be safe AND effective? What good is an allopathic piece of shit drug if it, to some degree (let’s not get crazy and think that statins ALWAYS prevent heart attacks), prevents one disease, while it, so some degree, increases the risk of another. Millions are at risk of diabetes. Millions and millions of Americans are living at the threshold of the disease, live with insulin resistance or “syndrome X” as it is called. What would happen to them, to those already living with high risk of diabetes, if they were to take the statin drugs to prevent heart disease. So many of the causative factors of heart disease are the same for diabetes and vice versa. Can a drug that causes an increase of possibility of one ever be a wise treatment for the other?

How is it possible that we have a medical system in which a significant increase in risk for a terrible disease is seen as a “side effect?” It boggles the mind. And yet, to the millions who have been so dazed and confused by a lifetime of hearing allopathic bullshit propaganda, it all starts to see as if it makes sense. A few will die from the drug, and a few will be saved by it. Only fair. Only fair.

What makes me so sad is that there are other methods and other medicines that can be equally effective in the treatment of high cholesterol that don’t involve the same risk that allopathic medicine does. Isn’t it high time that you gave that some thought? That you stopped taking medicines that put you at risk when you take them and, instead, found something that is safe and effective?

I am always honored when I am asked to be interviewed by a fellow blogger, especially one like Dr. Amit Nagpal, whose passion of healing is obvious to all his readers. He recently sent me a list of very interesting questions for me to look over and answer. So I wanted to let you know about the interview and to give you the link to find it. Just go here.

Dr. Amit

Dr. Amit calls his blog “The Joys of Teaching.” As he writes, “The blog was initially inspired by my passion for teaching. Though I have personally moved to consulting and coaching the title remains my first love, ‘The Joy of Teaching.’ In any case, teaching (sharing knowledge) and co-learning are the basic principled behind consulting, coaching and training.”

Amit’s blog also features “Life Mantras for Your Sustainable Success.” Among his tools for success are prayer and meditation, making his a most unusual spirit-based practice. I strongly recommend that you spend some time with Amit at his blog. It is filled with useful information. I added the link to my recently started Blogroll, that you can find at the bottom of the right column. (I intend to develop this list of links as time goes on, to bring you direct connection to some of the most exciting holistic sites on the internet.)

Due to space restrictions, Dr. Amit was unable to present the entire interview on his blog, so I present it here. One question, on the topic of the Bach Flower Remedies, was omitted. And since the Bach Remedies are among my favorite healing tools, I decided to present the material here:

Dr. Amit: Tell us what are Bach Flower remedies and what do you mean by homeopathy in thought and action.

Vinton McCabe: Bach Flower Remedies are a very special little pharmacy of healing tools. Edward Bach was an allopathic physician who, at the time of the First World War, was transferred to Hahnemann Hospital in London to continue his work as a microbiologist. That hospital was, of course, named for Samuel Hahnemann, the Father of Homeopathy.

During his time there, Bach became well versed in Hahnemann’s methods and in homeopathic philosophy. So much so that he himself developed a group of homeopathic remedies that were based in part on the work he was already doing. These remedies, known as bowel nosodes, are still in use today in the treatment of patients with myriad diseases.

After the war, Bach built a private practice in London and became one of the most successful physicians of his day. And yet, due in large part to his new-found understanding of Hahnemann’s work, Bach became more and more disenchanted with allopathic methods and medicines. At this point, one might think that Bach would become a homeopath, and yet he did not. While he used some homeopathic methods in his practice, he felt that homeopathy, powerful as it is, was simply too difficult a practice for even medical professionals to get right.

And so, in the final years of his life, he closed up shop in London, moved to a small town on the English coast and dedicated his time and energy to attempting to find a new way of working—a method of healing that would be similar in action to homeopathy, but that would be simple enough for even lay people to use to treat themselves and their loved ones.

The result of his work are the Bach Flower Remedies, a group of thirty-eight remedies that are taken from the plants that were native to the countryside in which he lived. It is said that Bach gathered the plants around him and potentized them, just as homeopathic remedies are potentized, to a zero potency, or what, in homeopathic medicine, is called a Mother Tincture. Where homeopathic remedies continue to be diluted from the zero potency to many, many different potencies, Bach chose to leave his there, at the point at which the Bach remedies are the perfect balance between homeopathic and herbal remedies.

They are wonderfully safe, simple to use and can be tremendous tools for healing. I have time and again seen cases in which these simple remedies act when nothing else will. Because of my love of these remedies, I wrote a book on them—the book that is actually my favorite of all that I have written. It’s called The Healing Bouquet: Exploring Bach Flower Remedies and it has all the information that anyone needs to safely and effectively use the remedies.

To answer the rest of you question, the concept of Homeopathy in Thought and Action is based upon something that James Tyler Kent said that I read long, long ago, but stayed with me ever since. Kent—who was perhaps the United States’ finest homeopath, an eclectic physician who practiced roughly in the second half of the 19th century—said that homeopathic remedies are homeopathic in two ways: by how they are made and by how they are used.

This is very important, because it means that a remedy can be potentized perfectly, by the two-step process set forth by Hahnemann himself, but, if that remedy is used like an allopathic medicine, it will act like an allopathic medicine. In other words, there is philosophy behind how homeopathic remedies are chosen and how they are used that must remain in place if the treatment is to be properly homeopathic. And when we take our remedies and use them in allopathic ways, we bastardize our own treatments, making them semi-homeopathic and semi-allopathic.

An example of this might be blended remedies. The mixtures that you see all the time in health food stores. Because people are too afraid or too lazy to use single remedies, instead they buy a combination of ten or twelve different remedies for the treatment of a cold or a backache or some other specific condition. Now homeopathic students all know that just using the remedies in treatment of a specific condition is wrong—as if the condition itself tells you what medicine to us—but on top of this, they are also using a mixture of many different remedies, all of which produce multiple symptoms. How can they possibly expect a good result from such and action?

Homeopathy in Thought and Action is a guiding principle for both my classes and my books. It means that, to be an effective consumer of homeopathics, or, even more important, to be an appropriate and skillful homeopathy, one must have and understanding of the philosophy and history of homeopathy first and then build and understanding of the materia medica and its uses. You need to think right to use the remedies right—there is no way around it.

I think that the concept of Homeopathy in Thought and Action is so important that I named my entire series of Kindle exclusive books after the principle. Each of these books looks specifically at an aspect of homeopathic philosophy or at a part of the materia medica, or even an individualized treatment, like the treatment of high blood pressure, so that, putting all the individual books together, one can get a very good overview of the philosophy and practice of homeopathic medicine.

Those interested in knowing more about this series of books can visit my Amazon Authors Page and look for the “Homeopathy in Thought and Action” series of books by clicking here. Or on my website by clicking here.

It is time to seriously consider the THMPD–the Traditional Herbal Medicine Product Directive. THMPD will become law as of May 1st of this year (it was passed back in 2004, but only now will be enforced) unless planned challenges block the directive. Should it become law, it will remove literally thousands of herbal supplements from the shelves of stores throughout the European Union.

As this blog is based in the United States, and as a large chunk of my readership shares my geography (if not my opinion when it comes to homeopathy and herbal medicines), I can feel your interest in my topic of choice fading with the realization that the new law affects “them” and not “us.” But whether a reader is based in Ohio or in France, in London or in Phoenix, the overwhelming importance of what is now playing out should be enough to hold everyone’s interest.

This is all about choice, all about your choice and mine to decide what does and does not constitute appropriate medical treatment. THMPD has, to put it mildly, been controversial for the better part of a decade. Some insist that it is a means by which all medical treatments can be simplified and made safer. Others, myself included, insist that, far from making medicine safer, THMPD will make it all the more dangerous because when safe and effective treatments are no longer an option, more of us will have to turn our lives over to the allopaths, whose medicines have been shown again and again to be toxic and unsafe.

More important–and it is perhaps hard to conceive of something being more important than life and death through medical treatment–THMPD makes infants of us all. It places the government in loco parentis and sends the message that lay persons are just too plan stupid to be allowed to decide the when, why and how of medical treatmenf FOR THEIR OWN BODIES. This is a matter of the most basic human right, the right to choose the quality of one’s life, and it is not to be taken lightly.

An easy parallel to the situation at hand that illustrates why all Americans should be paying close attention and be preparing to take action is the onset of America’s involvement in World War II. We were idiotic isolationists for way too long during the WW II era–president FDR begged Congress to agree that we should join the battle again the Axis powers. But our government would not be moved until we were attacked directly. And that attack so crippled us that we were ill prepared at the onset for what was to come, especially in the Asian theater.

If we don’t take action now. If we as individuals don’t raise our voices now, both here and abroad, then we will most certainly see the day when we face the same attacks here at home. I, for one, don’t want to give up my right to buy herbal tinctures, homeopathic remedies and Bach Flower remedies. I don’t want to live to see the day that I have to go to some allopath’s office and pay for an office visit in order to get a prescription for Vitamin C. Nor do I want to pay the inflated price for that Vitamin–a price that will most surely continue to rise and rise once it is put into the hands of a pharmaceutical company. And I especially do not want homeopathic remedies to be put into the hands of allopathic doctors–those who understand their use or even their basic philosophy least are the last people who should have the keys to the medicine cabinet.

In short, if we don’t start screaming right now, we are likely, in very few years from now, to find ourselves good and THMPD.

What to do? Start with your representatives, your Senators. Especially your Tea Party folks who have vowed to “take back our government.” These are the guys who made a big noise against changes in our medical care. Let’s all make sure that one thing that is guaranteed to not change is our legal right to herbal medicine, to vitamin supplements and to homeopathic remedies. Let’s nail those rights down right now, so that we don’t have to fight for them later on.

Here are some links for today. The first one here is for a good article on the NGO and it’s legal attempts to block the THMPD. And to drive things home a bit more, here is a great article from Whole Foods that will tell you about all the products that will not be available in the USA any longer is they are outlawed in the European Union. Thought that only the French would suffer if the THMPD becomes law? Guess again.

Darvon? A painkiller that’s been around for fifty-odd years now? Turns out that for all those years it has caused dangerously irregular heart rhythms. Think about it, fifty years of use, untold millions of patients–how many deaths might be attributed to this single medicine. Think about it, fifty years in use, long suspected as dangerous and only now does the FDA remove the drug from use. Think about it, think about how many drugs have been removed from shelves this year alone, allopathic drugs used in the treatment of myriad diseases, all proven ineffective or downright dangerous. And yet, there are those who think it foolish to not want to be put in the position of taking such dangerous medications and to, instead, use the safer and more effective alternative, homeopathic medicine.

Read the whole story about Darvon in The New York Times. If you have a moment, dig back through the some recent posts here at Psora Psora Psora and read some of the other articles. And note, the articles used here come from two sources, the New York Times, our nation’s newspaper of record, and The Atlantic, one of our oldest and most respected publications. These are not conspiracy theories, these are simple facts: our drugs are not safe, they are not well-tested or safely used. Our government does a terrible job of keeping us safe when it comes to making sure that only the safest and most effective drugs are used. And it’s high time that we hold our representative’s feet to the fire when it comes to the issue of safety in medicine.